The issue of housing ‘affordability’ is a key part of the public discourse in most European countries today. For example, in the recent election in Ireland, 26 per cent of voters stated that housing and homelessness was their top priority when they decided how to vote, second only to healthcare. Furthermore, the Eurobarometer surveys show that concerns about housing remain elevated in many countries.

The latest round of EU ‘Survey of Income and Living Conditions’ (EU-SILC) data have recently been published by Eurostat, covering the 2018 period. The SILC figures indicate that the recent trend in ‘at risk of poverty or social exclusion’ rates has continued to edge down at an EU level; from 22.4 per cent in 2017 to 21.7 per cent. While the exact percentages vary wildly from country to country (e.g. 32.8 per cent in Bulgaria compared to just 12.2 per cent in Czechia), there is also a huge amount of variation at an EU level between different housing tenures. The 2018 figures show that just 9.3 per cent of mortgage holders in the EU are at risk of poverty. This compares to 20.1 per cent of outright owners, 32.9 per cent of those paying private market rents and a staggering 38.4 per cent of those renting at below market rates.

What’s happening to housing in our cities? Why has it become so hard to access affordable quality housing in conurbations of all sizes? And what can we do about it?